seth, is it true? well, the threats today are certainly different from what they were in 2001, erin. i would say the challenge that the president has now is looking for his own intelligence community assesses afghanistan is with the taliban government that has strategic level, down to tactical level relations with al qaeda and afghanistan is on a trajectory to once again become a safe haven for terrorist organizations and, you know, it s really hard to put as fine a point as we just saw with the isis-k attack against u.s. forces. isis is still active. there are a number of anti indian groups active in afghanistan and obviously, we have al qaeda, which is very active in the country and active in the taliban s takeover embedded in taliban units. and just one last comment on the challenge here is i think it
military mistake that s been made by administration even in the past 20 years, just stop. stop. and be a serious grownup leader. that s not what you re being. the stububstantive point is getg americans out. the president said they will keep trying to do it. the bigger question is seth s more important point than kevin mccarthy s and serious point is the war goes on, what brings america back in? president biden may want to quit afgha afghanistan. afghanistan may not want to quit on us. the war on terror doesn t want to quit the united states. but there is a chilling if he can and kevin mccarthy is not in touch with this. 20 years of 9/11, what is america prepared to die for? i don t know the answer to that question. we ve been fighting and dying in iraq and afghanistan for 20 years and we didn t win those wars. at best, it was a draw or we lost them and the war on terror continues, the enterprise was to
on the ground versus the words that we re hearing from their leadership. your context of terrorists melting into the taliban is really important for this next question because seth today, president biden talked about why he got out of afghanistan, right? he made his case. he said there is no vital interest in america being there now because the united states already succeeded in doing what it set out to do. here he is. the fundamental obligation of a president in my opinion is to defend and protect america. not against threats of 2001 but against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow. that is the guiding principle behind my decisions about afghanistan. so he s saying the threats of 2021 and tomorrow are very different than 2001. that s the case he s making.
have a lot more control on the ground, certainly then the afghan army had when it was in control, there are still huge questions about how they can sustain that control when they are also in the business of governance. it is a lot easier to be an insurgency than to be govr erni a country. david petraeus said we have to be right every time. they just have to be right once. that s what the taliban is up against and it remains to be seen whether they can provided a quit security and prevent this country from becoming a safe haven again. clarisa, seth and david, thank you very much. next, the tens of thousands of afghan refugees that could soon make their way to american soil. is the united states even remotely prepared for what could be up to 50,000 people about to come? plus, the death toll rising after hurricane ida as rescue crews are working around the clock to help those stranded with no food, no water and no